The Canadian Foodgrains Bank’s Lake Alma — Souris Valley Growers Project, along with 31 others like it in Saskatchewan, responded to the needs in the most distressed parts of the world with assisting 99 projects in 31 countries.
This is the 17th year that the Beaubier Pentecostal Church, sponsor of the Growers Project, has been responding in this way to hunger.
The land of living skies has produced a bountiful crop. Farmers have chosen to share their blessings with those less fortunate. Combines, grain carts, grain transports and pick-up trucks converge from all points of the compass on the Growers Project quarter section of land.
The bright pleasant morning is abuzz with socializing conversation as local farm families enjoy hot mugs of coffee, with a barbecued hamburger or smokie and cookies of the homemade variety. Everyone’s spirit is buoyed by knowing they are being a blessing to others through donation of their expertise, time, equipment, goods and dollars.
A conga line of combines forms as they march across the field. GPS systems allow easy segmentation of the low-lying red lentil crop. Grain carts attend bulging combines. Combines and grain carts buzz around the grain transports and discharge hoppers of the red lentils collected, like bees at a hive.
There is a sense of anti-climax as the last grain transport turns off the stubble field onto the grid road on the way to the grain terminal. The harvest is over too soon.
This story did not start with a gathering for harvest and does not end with a dump at the grain terminal. The same local farmers and sponsors donated their expertise, time, equipment, goods and dollars to seed, spray and tend the crop, a necessary precursor to a bountiful crop. The federal government leverages each bushel harvested four to one. This Growers Project, aided by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank’s overseas infrastructure, will feed approximately 25,000 needy people for a period of six months.
Education, potable water sourcing and micro financing services are also provided. It is a hand up, bridging to a new and hopefully better life in the areas of distress. Corporate sponsors make this response to hunger possible. Their donations include inputs such as seed, fertilizer, inoculants, fungicides, herbicides and marketing services.
The corporate sponsors include BASF, Bayer, Beaubier Pentecostal Church, Crop Production Services, Dow Agro Sciences, DuPont, Farmers of North America, Glad Tidings Tabernacle Sudbury, Hansen Air Spray, Hilbix, Monsanto, Nelson Motors Equipment, Novezyne, Nu-Farm, Parrish and Heimbecker, Phileom-Bios, Pioneer DuPont Grain, Prairie Sky Co-op, Quality Grain Brokers, Richardson Pioneer, Southland Pulse, Stoller, Syngenta, Tim Horton’s, Viterra and private individuals.
